One passenger claims she boarded the ship on January 8 and had yet to attend a muster drill. If true that is very troubling to me. I haven't read that the Captain left before the evacuation was completed.

In the article here, it stated that passengers had not participated in the muster drill. One was scheduled for Saturday.

Yes, but my point is they embarked new passengers on Friday at Civitavecchia, yet the lady who boarded in France on the previous Sunday had still not attended a muster drill. She would have been aboard for 6 days by then.

Ah, I wonder if then there's going to be new rules enforced regarding the muster drill. I read that article further, and it stated that on that particular vessel, muster drills are every 15 days, and some passengers could miss it depending on when they embark / disembark, as this appears that passengers embark and disembark every day on this particular itinerary, cruise line, and vessel.

It is completely unacceptable to have that much of a lapse of time between drills. The U.S. Coast Guard would not allow it, but then the Concordia was sailing in Europe where local regulations appear to be taken as suggestions, such as traffic lights in Napoli.

All newly embarked passengers on a cruise such at that one should have to attend a briefing prior to the ship leaving the port.

A larger issue appears to be the communication breakdown between the crew and the many nationalities aboard as passengers. That one is a tough nut to crack.

It is completely unacceptable to have that much of a lapse of time between drills. The U.S. Coast Guard would not allow it, but then the Concordia was sailing in Europe where local regulations appear to be taken as suggestions, such as traffic lights in Napoli.

SOLAS regulations apply in Europe as much as in any part of the world, and I'm dying to hear the reason why such pax drill has not been performed.

Seeing now the AIS tracks, it's a mystery to me why they sailed so close to shore. I'm sure this tragic accident will be used as a "case" in BRM courses in the future.

It annoys me as well how media keep going "How could this happen, with all the state of the art navigation equipment onboard" etc. We could put all the equipment in the world onboard - as long as they are being operated by humans this will continue to happen from time to time.

It annoys me as well how media keep going "How could this happen, with all the state of the art navigation equipment onboard" etc. We could put all the equipment in the world onboard - as long as they are being operated by humans this will continue to happen from time to time.

More than once yesterday I posted on various sites the same thing. Human error always trumps technology. At the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown the instruments in the control room were giving accurate indications but the operators didn't believe it and ignored some key parameters, and things went from bad to near catastrophe.